Why taxpayers in France may no longer be able to pay by cheque

The option to send cheque payments to the French state may be coming to an end, after a sharp decline in the number of cheques sent and wider plans to combat fraud.

The change would include tax payments – including for additional income tax requirements, and property taxes such as taxe foncière or taxe d’habitation – and for fines such as for speeding offences. 

Payments would instead have to be made via the alternative options currently available, such as bank transfer, bank card payment, direct debit etc.

French tax authorities are reviewing whether to end the system after a 72% drop in receiving payment by cheque payment in the past 10 years. 

A 20% drop in the number of cheques sent between the first four months of 2024 and 2025 has further strengthened the case for removing this option. 

Only 4.5% of tax and fine payments in 2024 were made via cheque, around 1% of overall payments. 

The changes would not require private businesses to stop accepting cheques, although they do currently have the right to refuse this method of payment. 

Cheque payments represented less than 3% of non-cash payments in France in 2023 according to the Observatoire de sécurité des moyens de paiement, with this number likely further reducing in the following years.

40 million cheques sent to French government last year

However, some have criticised the plan for unfairly impacting older people who still use cheques as their main payment method. 

The 4.5% of payments to the government by cheque in 2024 corresponds to around 40 million cheques, says CGT Finances Publiques, a branch of the CGT union. 

Whereas other European countries have successfully begun to phase out cheque payments, they are still comparatively popular in France – 87% of Europe’s cheque transactions come from France according to the Banque de France. 

In comparison, Finland phased out cheques in 1993, Poland in 2006, and Denmark in 2017 with several other EU countries ruling out cheques for certain payments.

Wider plans to combat fraud

There is only one government cheque processing centre left in France, located near Rennes. 

Media outlet Le Monde suggests this could be closed by 2027 – officially ending the validity of cheque payments – however this has not been confirmed by the DGFiP (Direction générale des finances publiques). 

Authorities are also reportedly favourable to the suggestion as, despite the low numbers, cheque payments are the most susceptible to fraud. 

Minister for Health and Labour Catherine Vautrin recently announced major plans to tackle social security fraud in France, which costs an estimated €13 billion annually.